


The Question

by starcunning (Vannevar)



Series: Incubus Ravenor [1]
Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Correctionfic, Dreams that I just don't understand, F/M, NSFW, Psychic Bond, Ravenor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:14:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vannevar/pseuds/starcunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the eve of her first field operation since leaving Sameter, Gideon Ravenor comes to ask Patience Kys the Question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Question

> It is the question that drives us.  
>  — Unknown author, Terra, M2

The world of Ceranthe is a dark green ball hanging at the very edge of the Ophidian subsector's trailing border. A world close to its parent star, Ceranthe is hot, humid, and teeming with life. Sixty-four percent of the planet's surface is covered in lush, steamy jungle that wraps the globe in a perpetual haze. Harlon Nayl compared its appearance to that of a watermelon earlier, and that is accurate enough. 

Our enduring hunt for the heretic Zygmunt Molotch has brought us here, tipped off my a xenoarchaeologist who had been exploring some old ruins of the saharduin. To most of the Imperium's populace the shark-men of the stars are little more than myth, but in truth they are real enough. But they are of less concern to my efforts than other ruins that can be found on Ceranthe. Ruins whose contents are of interest to Molotch, and to his Cognitae masters.

In little more than thirty-six standard hours the Inquisition will, however quietly, arrive on Ceranthe. 

It has been a long voyage, longer than anticipated. When I left Sameter it was with the intention of heading coreward to follow another lead. I requested rendezvous with one of the Black Ships collecting tithes on Mirepoix. I had not seen one since I was a boy.  
I suppose, I cannot help but reflect, I still have not.

They spared me a trio of psychic adepts—all women, all telekines. These grudgingly after I made it clear that they could not send me men; that I would turn them away. If Patience Kys were ready for a man to teach her I would have shepherded her myself. But she began the voyage as a restive, somber woman, and it was only through her tutors' eyes, and regular reports from Kara Swole, that I was able to follow her early progress.

Then the message came from Ceranthe, and I requested an all stop to change the Hinterlight's course. Cynia Preest, ship's mistress, obliged me as she must. But I can taste the resentment in her tone too often, since Majeskus, and I keep well out of her head.

It has been hard going toward the Halo Stars once more. The Warp through which all ships must pass has been compared in many volumes to an ocean, fathomless and dark, its glittering surface hiding manifold perils. Perhaps the currents were against us. Perhaps Mamzel Preest's navigator shares her apprehension about the rimward regions.

Whatever the reason, a journey that should have taken months felt like years, and the Astropaths were overtaxed simply attempting to correct shipboard time to standard once a week, as we marked things aboard the Hinterlight.

Although we left Sameter six months ago, the crew of the Hinterlight marked the time in years. Inwardly I cannot help but be glad. There has been little time for us to lie fallow and tend to ourselves. The wounds of Majeskus are not so fresh. Neither, then, the abuses of the Kindred Youth Scholam. The time has improved Patience Kys, albeit by inches.

It has not made Wystan Frauka any less louche. I should be worried about losing him, as I worry about Preest, but since Majeskus he has made no indication that he intends to leave my service. He has made no indication about most things, and I do not need to guess at why. Some of the losses we suffer are felt keener than others. Time will tell if Zygmunt Molotch's emotional blow has left him truly crippled as it has not done the others. Even the thought of revenge to be found on Ceranthe does not stir him.

— — — — —

The enhanced view of the world below fills the viewport, casting a stark light upon the chamber. The illuminators are doused—they are not needed, and by ship time it is nearly midnight anyway. The regicide board has not been touched since Mamzel Preest departed for her bunk hours ago. Preest is a superior player when the mood strikes her, though our games have been rare over the past year. Only recently has she returned to the board. Fortunately, it is rare that her competitive nature comes to the fore, and she is typically content to move whatever piece strikes her fancy while she talks, the board merely her excuse to speak with me.

I have come to enjoy her manner, though I cannot say now that the notion is reciprocated. There is an earnest manner to the woman I have learned I must appreciate in my line of work, for it is a quirk of personality to be found few and far between in the life of an Inquisitor. Doctor Berschilde once likened the pair of us unto Eisenhorn and Bequin, and though she was quite wrong in her assessment—there is no attraction of any kind between us—it was one of the few occasions that made me thankful for my current state, for none were present that could see me blush.

For now, though, I shall put her from my mind. With Ceranthe so close it is time to make the rounds of my followers and speak with them as I have already spoken with Frauka, whose Blank nature bars me from his mind. I make myself comfortable—metaphorically, of course, for within my life-support system I am immobile—and relax.

The time has come to walk in dreams once more.

— — — — —

The first member of my band I visit is Zeph Mathuin, lounging on a wooden porch overlooking a coniferous forest. The dark-skinned man is as quiet in his dreams as in reality, and my visit takes but a moment or two.

Harlon Nayl is watching a bounty's hideout on Thracian Primaris. Kara Swole drag-races on an empty stretch of highway. Carl Thonius converses with me in a private box at the First Gudrun Opera House.

The mood runs high, I can sense. I am reassured by my team's positive attitude. The past six months, such as they are, have not been easy for us.

Such thoughts slide away once more as I step through the veil and enter the dream of the telekine, Patience Kys.

I am surprised at what I find: Patience Kys stands on a grand portico looking out over a courtyard, the grand hall behind made up for some high-society fête. A masquerade, I realize, seeing her. She is lovely, her dress black and slinking, with mask and collar of dark feathers: a black swan, sensual and sinister. It is not like Kys to dream of such things, at least in my experience. Still, it is only a moment for me to clothe my body in more appropriate garb for the situation.

My  _body_ , for it is only here these days that I am gifted with such a thing. I am a tall man—though not so tall as Nayl or Mathuin—of indeterminate middle age, not unhandsome, with black hair kept in a very long queue that hangs down my back, a habit from my younger years.

My suit for the evening is white, the opposite of the black casket that contains my physical body—white shoes, shirt, tie, and jacket. Even the gentleman's cane that appears in my right hand is polished ivory, and though I cannot see it directly (for there are no mirrors present) I know that the mask I feel upon my face is likewise alabaster, pristine.

As I draw nearer to her, Nayl and Kara gallivant across the floor in time to the band's gavotte. Unlike Kys—unlike myself—they have come much as I have known them, in bodygloves and armor. In fact, the rest of the partygoers seem not to be in costume at all. The oddity of the dream becomes a bit more clear: Kys is the sole masked figure amongst a crowd of people open and unashamed.

I tuck my cane beneath my arm and hold my hand out to her. "A dance?"  
"Gideon?" she asks. Her green eyes are narrow behind her mask, defined with dark eye makeup.  
"Yes. Hello, Patience," I reply. She extends a gloved hand, and I take it. The dance floor is not far, and with the cane left behind amidst the fixings of the place it is a simple matter to take the masked woman into my arms. She drapes her arm over me, gloved fingers caressing the linen of my suit. Still, it has been a long…very long time since I have danced, and I am slow at first to remember the intricacies of the ritual. She senses this, and leads. I can feel the rise and fall of her chest as if dictated by the beat of the music. Kys' body is lithe and tightly-built against my own, a distant echo of Arianhrod's.

A painful memory. I do not dwell upon it. "You look quite stunning," I say aloud instead.  
"Who are you?" she asks, and it wrong-foots me a moment.  
I smile, the expression lost behind the mask. "I am Gideon Ravenor, Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos Helican," I reply. The voice is a perfect match for the one Patience Kys and many others have sensed echoing inside their heads.  
"We both know that, Gideon," Kys replies. She shakes her head and a lock of hair falls free of her bun, brushing her cheek. "Who are you here as? No one else is in costume."  
"In truth," I admit, "I am not entirely certain." I I take my hand from around her to reach up to my mask, pulling it some few inches from my face so that I may study the contours. There is a familiarity to them despite the reversal, and after a few moments I am able to discern the structure, and must restrain a laugh at the monstrous arrogance of my disguise. I place the mask once more upon my face and slip my arm around her waist, taking the lead in our dance. "I would wager that if I came to you dressed not in an evening suit but rather crimson power armor and a pinioned set of wings I would be more immediately recognizable," I say.  
"You may as well take it off," she says with dismay. "Everyone else came as themselves."  
"Will you remove yours as well, then?" I ask her. It sounds like I am teasing but in truth this is a rare opportunity. Patience Kys is an insular person, even as far as an Inquisitorial warband goes, and I have yet to connect to her as well as I have Harlon or Kara.

She considers this for a long moment, then lifts her had from the nape of my neck, sweeping back her mask to bare her arrogant, lovely features. In turn, I prize the mask of the martyred son from my face. The open air of the courtyard is like a balm upon bare skin, and I could hardly help a smile even were I inclined to fight the impulse. As her arms settle around me once more, her brows knit. I can feel the dream trembling around us, heralding imminent collapse.

"I should have remembered this was coming," she says, and I can read from her surface thoughts that Kara has warned her. "You've come to ask me something," Kys purrs, taking mastery of her dream to turn away the attention of her fellow acolytes.  
"Yes. Harlon calls it 'the question.'  It is a habit of mine from all the way back when I looked like this in truth," I reply. "A touchstone, of sorts. I've come to ask if you are ready and willing for our undertaking."  
"You ask everyone." She's forgotten to make it a question of her own.  
"I saved you for last, Patience," I say more softly. "I thought we might talk."  
"Then let's talk, Gideon."  
I smile despite myself. In the waking world the expression would be hidden behind metal and scarring, but I am pleased she still calls me by my given name. "I wanted to ask after you. How you're doing. I've seen little of you this voyage, Patience, and I know that you are not one to open easily."  
"This is what you look like," she asks, "inside the chair?"

Ah. That question. It's an inevitability whenever someone sees this face. I shake my head slightly. "No, Patience, not anymore. I haven't looked like this in sixty years."  
Her expression wilts, and I feel the brush of her sleeping mind against my own. She's reading me. I allow it. "But you did, once," she says with conviction. "You're very handsome." She glances away as she says this, as if embarrassed.  
"Thank you," is my immediate reply. It has been a long time since I heard those words in the present tense, and longer still from a woman as beautiful as Patience Kys.

"I'm doing just fine," she says, returning at last to my earlier query, those green eyes boring into me again.  
"Just fine?" I echo.  
"Hell—if you really wanted to know, I doubt if I could stop you." She pulls away from me to curtsey as the band finishes with a flourish.  
"That's not my way, Patience," I say calmly as I bow in return. "I prefer the people I work with to trust me, and to know that I trust them in return." I straighten, her hand still in mine, and she leads me away as the band plays anew. "I've come to find that smashing aside the defenses of one's followers engenders little loyalty, strangely enough."  
"If I had a problem, you'd have heard about it by now," she assures me, smiling.   
"Then I suppose no news is good news," I smile.  
"I have to say that if someone told me I was going to be picked up by the Inquisition, I wouldn't have imagined it going this way."  
I laugh softly at her jest. "This isn't an interrogation, Patience. Not even First Order."  
"I never thought it was." Her voice is soft. "If I had, I'd have woken up already," she declares, false bravado touching her voice.

We fall into companionable silence until she speaks again. "I was angry with you for a long time."  
"I sensed that," I reply in a soft tone. "I regret that such deception was necessary."  
"If you'd looked like this when we met…" she murmurs absently, then she shakes her head. "But I can't blame you for that," she finally admits. "And it was too tiring, going around furious at you."  
"Rage will tire one out," I agree, looking past the courtyard to the vistas beyond.  
"Did you really go to all this effort to be sure I wasn't angry any more?" Kys asks, lifting a brow in her incredulity.  
"A man in my line of work makes enough enemies in the course of his natural career without nurturing extras on the side," is my reply. I smile. "Patience, the well-being of all those who work for me is my responsibility. I would make for a poor Inquisitor if I did not put in such effort."

I can't resist the impulse. It's been so long since I was without a body I forget myself. The arm that holds her own linked—I turn my hand over to clasp her gloved palm and use the other to pat her knuckles. I have to resist the urge to sigh. The woman's striking beauty alone is enough to make a man forget himself, but I find more worrying the possibility that she will find the gesture condescending. I don't want to see my goodwill undone. She looks at me, her muscles involuntarily stiff, and then she gives my fingers a gentle squeeze.  
"But you had a question for the others. It can't be that," the telekine says. She's shrewd even in her sleep, I note.  
I laugh, once. "Yes. 'The question.' We've drifted away from it." I turn from the balcony to face her directly. "Are you willing to join the undertaking to Ceranthe, Patience? It may well be the most dangerous encounter of your life thus far."  
"You'll be there," she prompts, looking down at her hand in mine, dark against light. "And Kara will be there?"  
"I will," I reply with a nod. "And so will Kara." The acrobat has come the closest of all of us to brokering true friendship with Patience since our departure from Sameter. It's little wonder that Kys would ask after her.  
"Then so will I," Patience tells me, and though her voice is soft as velvet, it seems stretched over a lattice of steely determination. "There wouldn't be much point to my agreeing to leave Sameter with you if I didn't."  
"Still, I am pleased to hear it, Patience." I smile. "You should prepare yourself accordingly, then. Ceranthe is going to be hot and humid. Be ready for an unrelenting steam bath."  
"I've endured considerable discomfort before, Gideon," she reminds me.  
"I know, Patience," I reply, accompanying the words with a light squeeze of her gloved hand. 

"Thank you for the dance. I've not done that in a long time."  
"You don't dream that you're like this any more?" she asks, pity in her voice.  
"Not when I dream on my own, no. I dream as I live. Confined, and yet," I look up and nod towards the night sky. "Unlimited by the darkness. But not like this. Not  _human_."  
"Someday you'll tell me what happened to you," she says, and I can feel the longing in her tone.

"I suppose you are entitled to the story. Men named it the Atrocity," I reply. Even now the word sticks in my throat when I think of it. "An attack upon Thracian Primaris by heretical forces." And caused by the fallen Inquisitor Quixos, but that is a detail that need not be mentioned. "Rogue psykers took control of an Imperial squadron and caused it to strafe the victory parade of the Warmaster Honorius. Days of fighting followed, but during the initial attack I was—"  _destroyed_  "—burnt and badly injured."  
I finally release her hand to touch my own face, feeling the skin that no longer exists. Her own follows, fingers brushing one of my cheeks. "Permanent life support became necessary to sustain me, and the chair followed that. That was more than sixty years ago, now."

"I'm sorry, Gideon," she says, stepping close, and I can see her struggling to keep the pity from her expression.  
"Don't be," I reassure her. "As all events great and terrible in life it has shaped me, and though there are…things I miss…" I say slowly as the soft material of her glove passes over my face. "I am proud of the man I have become, and I know that it could not have been possible without what happened."I smile. "But thank you, Patience. I appreciate your thought."

She looks up at me, studying me. Her hand trails from my cheek down to my jawline, and she cups my chin with gloved fingers. She hesitates, and her motions are slowed by it. Nevertheless, she leans up and kisses me.

I should be less surprised by this than I am. When she leaned towards me I doubted my initial instincts, even though they were perfectly correct. Her lips are soft, the gentle touch of them sensual and warm upon my own. It's so difficult to think through the pure sensation of them.

I'm not sure whether I should push her away or pull her closer. I settle for lifting my own hands to touch her face—lightly!—avoiding her kohl and makeup. I don't push. I do  _not_  push. But I do slowly straighten my fingers in such a way as to gently urge her face away from mine. Heat lingers as the deadly beauty leans away. Damnation. Am I blushing? I am blushing. I have to say something. Defuse the situation before it goes any further. I feel my breath hitch in my throat as my mind races. 

Gideon Ravenor, you are near-on one hundred years old, have written seven books and countless academic papers, ascended to the rank of Imperial Inquisitor, wooed several women, broached a peaceful relationship with a xenos species, and you are still struck utterly dumb by a single kiss.

Aemos would have called it  _most perturbatory._

"Patience…" I say, swallowing my follow-up.  
"Gideon," she responds without inflection, and it's as if I can watch her draw her guard up.  
"There is … probably a full legion's worth of reasons why this is a bad idea," I say, and it's true."I probably shouldn't even be contemplating this," I add, and that is true too.

She becomes, once more, a skittish psyker armored by her mistrust, and she says nothing in response, fighting to rouse herself and making the dream quaver around us both.

My hands remain hovering at her face as I slowly, oh so very slowly lean down to kiss her lips once more. She tips her chin upward, and the brush of her lips against mine is feather-light and sensual.  
I lower my hands from her cheekbones and reach out to encircle the woman in black, drawing her gently to me. She does not tense or stiffen, she simply lets me draw her in and wraps her arms around me in turn. I can feel the shape of her body beneath the evening gown, lithe and leanly muscled and aggressively sexual. My "type," if I am to be so blunt. 

It may be an uncouth thing to admit, but if not so then why else did I pursue Arianhrod? I fell for her the moment I first laid eyes upon her—and Patience Kys is the same stripe of lean sexuality, and of enviable beauty besides.

She smiles up at me, brushing her lips against mine. "If it helps," she offers, "you might remember that this is a dream."  
"It is indeed," I agree with a smile. It seems a long time that I simply hold the woman to me and kiss her lips. The sensation is at once a welcome reminder of the past and weirdly juvenile. Necking? Making out? I haven't done the like in ages. My hand lifts, stroking the back of her neck and the collar of black feathers that she wears, trailing up the smooth surface of her hair to loose her coiffure. Her hair is slightly cool to the touch, falling to brush the back of my hand where it presses into the curve of her back. Her silk-shod fingers caress my face, and I lean into them, succumbing to the impulse to stroke her ebon locks. They soothe me to touch, and I hold her close for a long, long moment, my lips upon her own.

When I part from her, it is silent. Kys has dismissed her illusory guests, leaving my angel and her black swan alone in the twilight. "Here?" I ask her softly. I don't bother to tell the striking woman that I desire her. She can feel that for herself already.  
"Did you have another idea?" she asks. Her smile is almost shy as she unwraps her arms from around me, drawing her gloves off before reaching up to smooth back a lock of hair from my forehead. She seems to enjoy the feel of my hair under her fingertips.  
"I would hate to make demands of you in your own dream."  
"I doubt it's supposed to go the way it does in Frauka's books," Patience snorts, stroking my cheek once more.  
My laughter is spontaneous and open. God-Emperor, I haven't laughed so well in  _years_. I lift my hands to encapsulate her own and kiss her fingertips. "They bear a passing resemblance to reality, but only that. Come," I say, gently pulling back a step. "Show me more of this place, Patience. Perhaps we'll find someplace…" I eye the courtyard flagstones dubiously, "…a bit softer."  
She leaves her hand in mine as she leads me away, back toward the manse and its empty halls. She's keeping something back—something about  _the way it's supposed to go_ —but she swallows it a few times before the thought stays down at last.

We come upon a grand staircase, and she lofts a brow before leading me up its right flank. It opens to an empty hallway, and I am treated to the strange sight of her constructing a hallway before us. It looks like nothing so much as the artery of a hive stack, but I take it as a good sign: it is warmer that the grand atrium, and much more personal. Patience opens a door and reveals a small, shabby room awash in the haze of nostalgia. The furniture is a mismatched jumble: the bed is the one she sleeps in even now, the desk of a sort common to her old scholam, and the other pieces of likewise diverse styles. The room is lit dimly by a globe of blue, its surface painted with the shape of a bird imported to Kys' homeworld of Sameter from Terran stock.

The wash of its light makes me think of the sea terrace of my old master's house upon Thracian Primaris, and I can't help a small smile at the memory. "A better place," I say, squeezing her hand, and I mean it truthfully.

She seems on the verge of saying something before pulling me in and loosing my hair from its queue instead. "So," she says at last. "How  _does_  it go?"  
"Well, the mechanics of it are simple enough," I joke, reaching up to loose her feathered collar, kissing at the hollow of her throat. She shivers.  
"I do know that," she smirks, deftly stripping me of my waistcoat.  
"Ah," I chuckle softly. My hands slide over the shape of her bare shoulders and down her back, lingering at the top of her gown before gently beginning to work it downwards, peeling it from her bust and the musculature of her back. She steps into my arms and lets out a long-held breath, catching the corner of my mouth with her own to kiss me lightly. Her deft fingers unknot my tie as I let the gown drop to pool around her feet, my hands running over her sides. I draw away to appreciate her beauty a long moment.

"When we met, you told me I looked nothing like you imagined," I remind her. "I remember thinking something quite opposite."  
"That I was exactly what you imagined?" she asks, laughing, standing before me so naked and lovely.  
"Not exactly," I grin as she unbuttons my shirt. Betraying the aspirations of her name, she wrenches at the fine material with frustrated hands, sending a spray of buttons about us. "The thought struck me that you were singularly beautiful, Patience."  
She smiles, touching my bare chest. "Thank you, Gideon," she murmurs, and I can't be sure, but I believe she's blushing. Her fingertips trail over my stomach to the waistband of my pants, muscles tightening under her hand.

Once more I am reminded of just how long it has been since I last did anything like this. My own hands drift upwards, my fingertips indenting slightly the underside of her breasts and lifting the twinned mounds just the barest amount before I let them fall once more. I turn my hands to palm her breasts, and I can feel her nipples tightening under my palms as I lean in to kiss her once more. He face is warm beneath her kohl. At least as warm as my own. She moans softly against my mouth, a prize all its own, and one that makes me shiver. She strips me, blindly, as I work my shoes off, the linen dropping to my ankles. I repay her with a groan as my member brushes the bare flesh of her hip.

 Instinctively I move to step away from my pants and it proves to be a mistake. It has been awhile, as I've noted, and my foot gets caught in the tangle of our garments.

Patience and I spill gracelessly into her bed, though fortunately I'm able to cushion her fall against my body as we do so. She wraps me in her arms as we land. Her dark hair mingles with my own upon the sheets, a perfect match as he lay against one another. She laughs, and it shakes her body against my own in a pleasant fashion. I join her in her laughter, entangling my limbs with her own.

She shifts her weight atop me, and I can feel myself pressed against one thigh. Patience bends herself to kiss me, her tongue flickering against my lips. I pull her close and open my mouth. She is long, lean, and so very beautiful, with a taste of plum upon her dark lips. Her hair spills forward to brush my chest, and she touches my face with such tenderness. She murmurs softly against me, then pulls away.

"Like this?" Patience Kys asks, voice low and husky.  
"Why not," I reply, brushing her cheekbone with the backs of my fingers.  
"Why not," she agrees, laughing, and moves to straddle me.

Patience Kys takes hold of me, and I groan, my hands drifting toward her shapely hips. If I wanted, even in this dream state I could pick her up and place her atop me. But that … would be a very bad idea. Patience Kys is not a woman to be manipulated in such cavalier fashion. A breath, a second, and I wait for her move. She teases the head of me against her folds, wet and heated, and traps her lower lip in her teeth to bite back a moan.

I am not so strong. I groan, and she sinks the very tip of me into her. "Oh, Kys," I manage, forgoing her trophy name in favor of the shorter surname. She is … tight, as I had expected, but also hot, wet …  _molten_ , and my hands grip her tightly as I fight the urge to pull her down onto me.

"Gideon," she hisses back at me, through gritted teeth, her eyes fluttering closed. Her muscles are tight under my hands as I coax her down onto me. It's difficult to decide whether the ordeal is pleasurable or agonizing as she sinks herself onto me, enveloping my length one slow inch at a time. My hands move from her hips to her long thighs, squeezing at the muscle there as I arch my back beneath her. 

She lets go of my member to grasp my hands, throwing her head back and moaning. With the column of her throat exposed, I can see her swallow, hard, and I know we can both feel me half-buried inside her. At last, she rests on her haunches, straddling me fully. Her walls are smothering, her heat luscious. She is … everything I could ever desire in a woman, and for a long moment I struggle not to embarrass myself on the spot. A series of slow, deep breaths calm my racing heart, and I pull her hands close enough to kiss her fingers before planting them against my chest.

She moans my name again, caressing my chest. I'm sure she can feel my heart pounding. Patience Kys moves, then, thighs flexing to lift her slowly from me.  
I had never dared imagine what it would be like to make love to Patience Kys. Certainly I found her beautiful, but her past and my position over her meant that every time my mind began to wander I would forcefully turn it to other tasks. And yet, those few small snatches of rogue imaginings … they pale utterly in comparison to this.

Her face still bears the makeup of the evening—her Black Swan—and it serves to make her already deadly beauty still more bewitching. My hands reach out to once more cup the surprisingly ample breasts that adorn her frame, soft and lush in contrast to the bladelike precision of the rest of her. My hips roll to meet her own, slowly still, the prelude to what comes next. I fill her utterly, and she cries out, her fingernails grazing my chest.

She shifts her weight then, changing the angle of my thrust and spilling her hair forward. She is fierce and predatory, haughty and assured. She takes me with greater speed.

"Patience," I whisper, not her name but a warning—one which I quickly discard, rocking my hips to meet her as she descends upon me. Her body writhes against mine, her lips hunting my own as she moans, our coupling punctuated by the sounds of flesh on flesh. Braced upon one hand, her other winds through my hair.

I don't need to be a psyker to sense her rising appetite, and I match her urgency with my own as our tongues slide against one another in frantic counterpoint. Now comes the rush, the frenetic pace of need. We writhe and buck against one another, sweat rising in the warmth of the hab that leaves the pair of us slippery as we grope at each other. There is nothing, now. No Inquisition, no Imperium—no Ceranthe … there is only this woman, and our mutual desire for release.

She tangles herself up in me, her fingernails striping my skin in her ardor.  
"Gideon," she whimpers against my mouth. It is a warning and a plea in one. I groan as I clutch her to me, the heat of her body almost unbearable and yet undeniable as I crush her to my chest.   
"Patience," I growl, kissing her lips roughly as I pull her down to me. We thrash atop the bedsheets for a few more seconds, breath hot as it mingles upon our bodies, and the sudden cold shock of release washes through my chest. Her grip grows even hotter, more slippery with the addition of my seed, and I arch against her for a long moment as the terrible knot of climax slowly passes through me. She cries out, and I can feel her body quaver. It is only too late that I realize the dream quavers too; that the sensations Patience Kys feels in her mind affecting her body with profundity.

— — — — —

I am myself once more.

The green globe of Ceranthe fills the viewport, its albedo filling the silent room with pale light. My chair is bathed in the planet's glow.

The arms and legs by which I held her … the hair through which she so wantonly ran her fingers … even the pale skin she did not shrink from touching. Once more all of it is gone. I am alone and all but bodiless within my shell, that which is at once my freedom and my tomb. 

No. I am not entirely alone. Not this once. I can feel the remnants of her dream even as they slip away, the bladelike touch of her mind as it begins to sever our link, forged under the cover of dreams. I could let it do so completely. Patience Kys is not nearly the practiced psyker that I am, and her mental state is not conducive to maintaining our contact.

I do not let her drop. I reach out and take hold of her, reinforcing the link so that I am not gone from her completely. The dream is over, and we are separated by half the length of the ship, but I am still with her—and in that way, Gideon Ravenor still lies with Patience Kys.

She reaches for me with her mind, and I can feel her surprise to know that I am still there. The realization comforts her.

 _Gideon,_  she murmurs, and even her thoughts are still breathless.  
 _Patience_ , I reply, my mind-touch as soft and soothing as I can make it.  
 _Thank you,_  Patience Kys says, and there's the whiff of vulnerability to her thoughts.  
 _Thank_ you, I echo.  
 _You knew what my answer would be. Why did you come to ask the question?_ She is still reaching for me, as if she can wrap her arms around the thing that I am now.  
 _As a gesture of goodwill. A reminder you are valued._  I am silent for a moment as I watch the distant surface of Ceranthe.  _Many are the Inquisitors that pay no heed to the agency of the people under their command, let alone those who are not. They are tools to them, if they are even that._

 _Patience Kys, you are no mere tool. No human being is. Each of us is a unique creation, self-determinate and greater than the sum of our parts. Telekinesis, athleticism, intelligence…these traits make you valuable, but they are not the value of you._ You _are the value of you, Patience Kys._

She does not think "aloud," though I can feel the heat radiating from her mind. She thinks of me, and considers the measure of the man who saved her on Sameter—not of the ruined flesh encased for all time within the chair, but of the man himself. She flinches to consider how she misjudged me.

 _I'm glad you did it, Gideon,_  she says.  
It is difficult to formulate a proper reply.  _Thank you, Patience,_  is what I finally settle on. I brush my mind against hers, as a man might brush his hand through his lover's hair.  _Sleep well_.

I stay with her until she does.


End file.
